


exposure

by pinebundles



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Demisexual Katniss (implied), F/F, Fluff, Joniss - Freeform, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 09:58:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4517541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinebundles/pseuds/pinebundles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘you were walking down the sidewalk and i fell out of a tree just as you walked by’ AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	exposure

**Author's Note:**

> based on an au from doctordirectioner5.tumblr.com/post/119894063389/alternate-universe-ideas

She took in the fragrant pine smell that seemed to envelop her, washing over her until there was nothing but forest. Finding a hand hold on trunk of the tree, she pulled herself up, then repeated the process with another protruding lump, using the first as a foothold. The rest of the scaling became instinct to her, some sort of second nature from practicing so often, hand, pull, foot, push, until she found herself face to face with a steady looking limb a little less than three quarters of the way up the tree. She shifted herself to the side, forcing her feet to share a particularly narrow foothold, before she reached for the limb with one arm while the other clung tightly onto its handhold, but her grip faltered when she reached harder, her wingspan not quite long enough to reach it. She tried to launch herself upward to grab onto the branch, but just as her fingertips brushed the top, her grip faltered and she felt herself free-falling, the aroma of pine swam all around her and the air the cradled her body, the peaceful scent was the only thing that she could recognize before she hit the ground.

Her back hit first, the small back pack she was carrying breaking her fall as the items inside poked at her spine through the contrasting fabrics of the nylon pack to the light weight cotton mix of her shirt. She felt her head hit sometime after that, the impact not softened despite the previous sequence. She gasped to get a hold on the air that was knocked out of her, her breathing erratic.

At that point, Johanna tried to sit up in order to assess the damage, but a pair of firm hands pushed her back down, startling her, she hadn't noticed anyone approaching, she struggled against the hands, thrashing, but they held their ground. She traced them back to the blurry face of a woman, who's lips appeared to be moving but for some reason Johanna couldn't find purchase on what she was saying through the ringing in her ears, stirring even more of a frenzied panic inside her.

The hands kept her steadied and Johanna took the time to survey the girl who was surveying her. She could make out a braid that was wound down her shoulder as well as a slightly loose fitting athletic tank top and running shorts she was wearing, so she gathered that the girl was probably on a jog or run before her encounter with Johanna. Her mouth seemed to still be moving from what Johanna could make out and their eyes met briefly when it stopped, which she gathered meant that the girl had asked her a question, so Johanna just stared hopelessly back in response, wondering when the ringing would stop. She watched as the girl heaved a sigh and relaxed beside her but Johanna didn't make any moves to sit back up in fear she would be shoved back down once more.

(That and she wasn't really confident she knew which way was up anymore.)

The girls lips moved again and Johanna tilted her head in response as she tried to read her lips, but much to her surprise she could actually sort of make out what she had said.

"What's your name?" She tried.

She squinted. "Jo," she coughed,  clearing the raspy undertone that lingered in her voice. "Johanna," she added quickly.  Her voice seemed aggravatingly quiet and for a second she feared the other girl didn't hear her, but instead the girl extended a hand.

Johanna attempted to extend her own arm but groaned in effort and the other girl dropped the offer. "I'm Katniss, listen, I'm a medical intern, can you tell me what happened to you?" She asked and Johanna was pretty sure her volume level was higher than it would have been regularly to help her out.

"I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say I fell out of a tree," she said a slight slur in her tone that she struggled to correct.

"Good, alright, can you tell me a little bit about yourself, Johanna?" Katniss asked, which in turn earned a chuckle from Johanna.

"Take me out to dinner first." Johanna replied.

The other girl rolled her eyes. "You're not really my type," she scoffed.

"I'm everyone's type," she retorted through a frown.

"I'm not really into the whole falling out of trees thing," Katniss responded. "Can you tell me why you were up there?"

Johanna groaned, blanking before she felt the push of something against her spine again. "Oh, uh, taking pictures, I think," she said. "Fuck, can you get my camera out of my bag?" She requested, rolling over clumsily, but at this point at least she couldn't make it worse for herself, nothing could be quite as uncoordinated as falling out of a tree, and felt a sharp pain in her chest. "Top zipper," she added through a  whimper of pain, referring to the location of her camera.

She thought she heard the tell-tale sound of a zipper being opened but she might have hallucinated it, she felt hands dig through the bag before they gave up and she let her shoulders go limp as the girl pulled her pack off of her completely. Johanna rolled back over once it was off, wincing once more.

Katniss took her items out of her bag one by one until she found the camera, but there was only so much Johanna had managed to cram into the small bag. A water bottle, a wallet, three film canisters, a cell phone with a cracked screen, (Johanna groaned once again when she saw that it had been broken in the fall.) as well as a flash and a portable light reader for her camera, and then finally the camera itself, which Johanna snatched out of the other girl's hands quickly.

She unbuttoned the faux leather cover it was fastened into and pulled it out, surveying it. The lens filter was cracked, but it had taken the fall for the lens itself, which didn't have so much as a scratch on it, she sighed in relief, mumbling a few half-hearted prayers. She fastened it back into its case and handed it back to Katniss, who put the things haphazardly into the bad as Johanna mumbled a thank you.

"So what's the assessment, doc?" Johanna asked once the bag was zipped up and Katniss was surveying her once more.

"What's today's date?" Katniss asked, earning a shrug from Johanna.

"August something? I think it's a Saturday."

"Who's the president?"

Johanna laughed. "Fuck if I know, some old white dude. I hate politics."

Katniss rolled her eyes. "You probably have some degree of a concussion, from what I can tell. Can you move your feet for me?" Johanna did as asked, watching as Katniss breathed a sigh of relief. "Can you take a deep breath?" Johanna tried to oblige but winced about halfway through the process, her face turning into a grimace. She looked to Katniss for some sort of support or answer or something but she had a focused look on her face that didn't give anything up. "Try to bring your right elbow to the ground on your left side for me," she requested.

"Anything for you," Johanna replied and Katniss rolled her eyes in response. She braced herself for the pain she knew was about to come, but the contracting of her muscles brought back the stabbing pain in her chest. She attempted to do the requested maneuver but ended up groaning something between "fuck" and "shit" when white-hot pain surged forth once more, she gnashed her teeth in frustration. "Okay, I take it back, anything but that."

Katniss laughed slightly. "Alright, I think it's probably safe to say your ribs are either bruised or cracked, so they'll probably give you some pain killers for that but they should heal mostly on their own, but make sure you ice it a couple times a day. They're gonna hurt like hell, you're probably going to want to die the first time you sneeze or try to roll over in bed. And when it's over you'll probably need some degree of physical therapy, but you can do it on your own," she informed her.

Johanna winced, "Sounds pleasant," she said.

"It's not, it sucks, but it could be worse, so that's something to be grateful for if you're looking for it. I wouldn't recommend any tree climbing for a while, and when you do, you might want to practice a bit, your technique is awful," Katniss said, laughing towards the end, Johanna glared at her. "Sorry, not funny. Let's get you up."

Johanna sat up through the pain, and watched as Katniss pulled herself off the ground and swung Johanna's bag over her shoulder before leaning down and offering her a hand, which Johanna took graciously, but the other girl had overestimated the force she needed, sending Johanna stumbling off balance into the girl, who steadied them both in a few steps. They each exchanged a brief apology in synchronization, and then a smile.

"You good?" She asked, removing her hands from Johanna's waist.

She nodded in response and stepped forward a few paces to test her pain tolerance, but she was more unsteady than anything and she lost her balance momentarily before the other girl steadied her once again. "That's the head wound speaking. You can lean on me for support."

"I'm fine, I just have to get my land legs back," scoffed Johanna, which warranted her a disapproving glare from the intern, to which she smirked. "Fine," she snapped after she stumbled again.

Every few steps she would get ahead of herself and pick up her pace a little, sending her stumbling into Katniss' waiting arms a few paces to the side of her, each time justified by her _I told you so_ glance, which Johanna was starting to find oddly comforting.

"How'd you get here? I don't think you're really in any shape to drive or walk for a long period of time."

Johanna cocked her head in thought and stopped in her tracks, finding it hard to multi-task. "I took the bus to the park, I think," she replied quietly before picking up her pace once more.

"Alright, well the park is a mile back and my house is just up here on the trail, so I'll take you there and get you some pain killers and then I'll drive you to the hospital, is that okay?" She asked, as if Johanna was in any position to decline.

"Wow, you're really taking me back to your place already, aren't you moving a little fast?" The other girl only rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh in response.

Katniss must have taken her response as a yes because she continued to lead Johanna in a direction she could only assume was toward the girl's house.

"So you're a photographer?" She asked when the silence, save for the forest white noise of birds and wind, became slightly uncomfortable.

Johanna nodded. "I'm getting my Masters in photography, but the landscape and nature shots I get from here always turn out beautifully on film," she said, hoping her passionate tone didn't make her sound like too much of a nerd.

"Isn't film a little old school?" Katniss asked after a few paces (and stumbles), Johanna assumed she had been debating whether or not to  pick fun at her about falling out of trees.

"Actually, not really, if you look at a time line we really only just stopped using film about a decade ago. High quality digital cameras were really scarce until like five or six years ago, the prints sucked and uploading them stripped them of quality. There's something about film that's constant, you know? There's something comforting about developing a print with your own hands, like you're in charge of everything. There's just a lot more to film than there is to digitalized photos," she trailed off when she saw Katniss was staring at her. "Sorry, I was rambling," she said. "It's probably the concussion, I'm not usually like this," she added quickly when the other girl's gaze didn't lift.

"No, I'm sorry, that was really cute actually but we're here," Katniss said.

"I'm not cute," Johanna responded through a scowl, which warranted a small smile from the other girl as she lifted a flower pot that had been resting on the brick landing of the front stairway, revealing a key.

"Now I can break into your house anytime I want," Johanna said with a smirk.

"Okay, first of all, if you know where the key is technically it's not breaking in," Katniss started, sliding the key into the lock and turning before she turned it back around and extracted it and handed it to Johanna to put it back under the plant. "And second, I'll hide somewhere else after you leave," she added, pushing her shoulder into the door to open it.

"You probably won't, you think I'm cute after all, you probably want me to come back," Johanna teased, following the other girl through the door.

Katniss rolled her eyes. "How hard did you hit your head, exactly?"

Johanna pouted as the other girl led her into the kitchen and took a seat on one of the four wooden chairs that stood around a round table in a nook in the room, natural, mid-morning light shining in past half-drawn blinds that hung on windows that stretched most of the length of the wall. Johanna took in the view of the forest, wondering the cost of a lot with a view like this.

"Do you ever get lonely out here? It's not exactly a neighborhood."

Katniss was busy rifling through what Johanna could only assume was a medicine cabinet in a half bathroom off of the adjoining living room. "I have a roommate actually, she's just not here right now, she's a film student, you guys would probably get along really well," she said as she padded into the room, two over the counter pill bottles in hand. She set them down and opened a cabinet that hung slightly crooked on the hinges, Johanna noted, and pulled out a glass before striding over to the sink and flipping the handle of the faucet up and filling up the glass. "And sometimes my sister comes to visit," she added quietly.

She handed the glass to Johanna, who took a swig of the water inside, then offered her a trio of round, brightly colored pills, which she graciously accepted and popped into her mouth before she chased them with another swig of water. "Thank you," she mumbled.

"Alright, let's get you to the hospital, do you need a change of clothes?"

Johanna surveyed herself, she looked alright from the front, but since her back took the brunt of the hit, she was sure it wasn't the same case for her other side. "That would be great, do you have just some sweat pants and a t-shirt or something?" she asked, the other girl nodded and she suddenly felt slightly guilty that the girl was doing all of this for her. "Hey, thank you for everything, by the way," she added sheepishly in the direction of the girl who had taken a few steps toward the staircase.

Katniss smiled, "This is way more fun than a run anyway," she replied, her voice getting quieter as she climbed the stairs.

Johanna paced around the room while she waited for the girl to return, she was already feeling less dizzy and the pain in her head wasn't quite as disorienting, she assumed that was the work of the pain killers.

A picture of Katniss and a younger blonde hung on the refrigerator with a magnet, Johanna assumed it was her sister and not her roommate because another picture showed a blonde girl with the side of her head shaved that appeared to be about the same age as Katniss next to a tri-pod holding a video camera and a couple of young men.

"That's Cressida, my roommate," Katniss said, startling Johanna, who stumbled backwards, only to be steadied by the other girl.

"Sorry, I wasn't trying to snoop or anything," Johanna said, a guilty feeling washed over her.

"Nah, you're fine," she replied, tossing the girl a couple articles of clothing and pointing out the bathroom Johanna had seen the other girl disappear into previously. "You can change in there."

"What you're not into strip teases?" Johanna asked with a smirk, padding toward the bathroom.

"Didn't I already tell you I wasn't into the falling out of trees thing?"

"That's not what I asked," Johanna teased, before disappearing into the bathroom, she shut the door behind her and made quick work of her clothing, pulling on a pair of grey sweatpants, (which she had to roll at the waist until the ends didn't brush against the ground,) and a white t-shirt  printed with black letters that read "Property of Panem High School Athletic Dept." with a clip art bow and arrow printed on beneath it, Johanna laughed.

She picked her discarded clothes off the ground, groaning in pain when she bent over, and then again when she got back up, then rolled them up. She surveyed herself in the round mirror that hung on the wall, her hair was slightly matted with sweat and she picked a leaf out of her hair, frowning, so much for first impressions. She splashed some water on her face, praising herself for not putting on make-up that morning and fixed the part in her hair, running her fingers through it gently to comb out some of the small knots, she definitely looked like she'd fallen out of a tree.

With that in mind, she pulled open the door, noticing that Katniss had also changed out of her tank top and shorts into a pair of black skinny jeans and a flannel, which Johanna decided was a _very_ good look on the girl.

"You never told me you were a jock, Katniss," Johanna said, gesturing to the shirt she had let her borrow.

Katniss rolled her eyes and Johanna smiled and stuffed her dirty clothes into her backpack and swung it over her shoulder. "Yeah, I was part of the archery club, believe it or not."

Johanna smirked, "But the question is, how terrible were you?" She asked as Katniss snagged her car keys from a rack by the door before leading the way you.

"I was actually the best one," Katniss bragged. Johanna laughed and followed Katniss with surprisingly coordinated footing. "My dad hunted for sport, actually, he taught me how to shoot," she added as they stepped into the girl's car.

"Well, my dad was a lumberjack, he taught me to chop down trees, so I'm quite a good camper," she laughed.

Katniss laughed with her as she started the car and shifted the gears into drive. "That's pretty gay," she said as she pulled out of the driveway and down the dirt road.

"Well, yeah so am I, so that's something," she replied.

"Fair enough," Katniss said, Johanna watched her as she turned the volume knob on the radio, changing the channel until she found one that wasn't playing commercials. "So are you gonna take me out on a date when this is over or something? To make up for all the havoc you've wreaked on my schedule."

Johanna was slightly taken aback, but she didn't let it show, she'd already wrecked her pride for the year. "Wow, you really do like to do things in reverse don't you? Call me cute and bring me home and _now_ you're asking me on a date. Or was that just all part of your ploy to get in my pants?" Johanna asked through a smirk.

Katniss guffawed in shock, a sound Johanna decided she really enjoyed. "I am so not trying to get into your pants," she laughed.

"Okay, brainless, keep telling yourself that," she said, glancing out the car window.

"And technically you're the one that's supposed to be asking me on a date, by the way," the girl added.

Johanna smirked,  "Remind me of that later when you ask me if I want to spend the night so you can keep an eye on me," she cleared her throat, "Medically, of course," she added in a mock-raspy tone of voice to try to mimic Katniss'. Johanna braced herself as Katniss threw a playful slap her way. "Hey, both hands on the wheel please," she said, ducking away from the next hit.

When Johanna glanced out the window she saw the tell-tale sky scrapers of the city, picking out a shorter white building that had the words "Panem General Hospital" accompanied by a red cross printed on the front, she picked out hundreds of windows that spanned the few stories, some covered by blinds, some open to the light passing through. A lone ambulance sat in the emergency bay and as the approached the parking lot she watched as paramedics lifted a person on a gurney out of the rear and conversed with doctors as the wheeled it past the automatic sliding doors.

"Is going to a hospital really necessary? Can't I just go to like an urgent care center or something?" Johanna asked when Katniss started circling the lot, trying to find a place to park the car.

"I mean, yeah, but we're already here and there aren't really a lot of urgent care centers around here," she replied, pulling in between two white lines. "Wait, do you not have insurance or something?" She asked, shooting the other girl a curious look.

"No, I do, it's not about the money. I just don't really dig hospitals, sick people freak me out and the wait times are so long and there's paper work and all this other shit I don't want to deal with."

"You'll be fine, we're in before the afternoon rush so the waits won't be that long and just don't touch anything, you won't get sick," Katniss replied firmly. "Plus I'll be there the whole time, and I'll request someone who know what they're doing," she added quickly when Johanna didn't look convinced.

She heaved a sigh and popped open the car door, ducking out and waiting for Katniss to follow suit before following the taller girl past the sliding doors of the main entrance and into the building, where Katniss motioned for her to take a seat in the waiting area while she approached the front desk, smiling at a middle aged woman who she appeared to have a brief conversation with before the woman handed the girl a clipboard.

She took a seat on the end of a row of plastic chairs, she grimaced and held back a groan of pain as she bent to sit, wondering how she hadn't realized that a lot of things move your abdomen before.

Johanna busied herself picking at the fabric of the drawstring on her sweatpants and watching an older man doze off several times before his snoring roused him from his short lived slumber, she tried to keep a tally but gave up when Katniss handed her the clipboard.

She examined the papers clipped to the piece of faux wood, it was about seven papers thick and most of it was just different variations of lines for name and address, which she scribbled down haphazardly, "This seems like overkill, why the fuck do they need me to write my name six times," she grumbled, the question not quite coming out as one.

"So some unfortunate intern doesn't have to do it for you," Katniss responded, Johanna could tell the other girl was getting a kick out of her annoyance.

Johanna pulled her wallet out of her backpack and extracted her insurance card, copying down the information off of it and grumbling profanities through the entire process, which seemed to lighten Katniss' mood even more. "Glad you're enjoying yourself," mumbled Johanna, her pen scribbling recklessly against the paper, Katniss just laughed quietly in response.

Johanna let out a groan of annoyance the old man jerked awake after a particularly sharp bout of snoring. When she had the last lines filled in she handed the clipboard back to Katniss, who flipped through the pages. "Are you really checking my work, brainless?" Johanna asked in vexation.

"Maybe I'm stealing your identity," Katniss replied with a smirk. Johanna watched as she handed the clipboard back to the woman at the front desk, exchanging smiles before the woman nodded at Johanna and then said something to Katniss she couldn't make out, but she knew the girl would tell her when she returned.

Johanna watched as a tall man in a lab coat approached the old snoring man, it appeared to be good news because the man was smiling, they shared a brief hug, which made the doctor appear slightly uncomfortable, and then they padded off in the direction in which the doctor had come from.

The plastic chair beside her squeaked slightly as Katniss sat down."Dr. Hawthorne will be right with you," Katniss said quietly, parroting what Johanna assumed was the voice of the lady at the behind the desk.

Johanna smirked. "You know him?"

"Unfortunately," she said "Don't get me wrong, he's a great doctor, he's just a dick," she added after a short pause.

"Ouch, that really hurt, Everdeen. I thought we had something special," interjected a new voice, Johanna looked up from Katniss to see the same tall, dark haired doctor that had talked to the snoring-prone man.  She surveyed him slowly, long enough to make him uncomfortable, she noticed as he all but squirmed under her gaze. He extended his hand to her, which she took firmly (maybe a little too firmly), in her own. "Gale Hawthorne," he said as he shook her hand.

"Johanna Mason," she said, dropping his hand, "can we get this show on the road?" She asked, standing up (and wincing at the pain).

"You got an important date or something?" Gale asked, leading her through a white corridor that seemed all too sterile for Johanna's liking.

Johanna shot a glance at Katniss, who was padding along beside her. "Yeah, actually, I think I do," she said with a smile, which Katniss appeared to happily reciprocate.

They followed Gale into a large room full of curtained off sections, pulling back one curtain and motioning them into it, Johanna followed the gesture and plopped down on the bed that waited for her.

"Alright, so can you tell me what happened and what your symptoms are?" he asked once they were all in the curtained room.

"I fell out a tree," she said bluntly, trying to restrain a smirk when she watched Gale's eyebrows lift. "And, uh, Katniss here says I probably have a concussion and some cracked ribs."

Dr. Hawthorne nodded at Johanna and she watched him throw an almost competitive look at Katniss. "Well, that's not uncommon with high falls, but we'll double check with some tests just to see and then we'll get you an x-ray or two, sound good?"

Johanna shrugged absently, "Do I have a choice in the matter?" she asked and Gale smiled and she couldn't tell if it was genuine or faux, but she decided she didn't really care enough to find out.

"Have you ever become unconscious due to a head injury previously?"

"Nope," she replied, popping the "p" for emphasis.

"Have you ever sought medical attention for a head injury previously?"He asked, he seemed as bored as Johanna felt and she wondered how many times he had asked these questions just this week.

"Negative."

She watched him scribble something down on a clipboard and looked over at Katniss, miming a snore and smirked when she struggled to conceal a giggle, which caught Gale's attention, he looked over at her and arched a brow just as she had regained composure.

"Oh-kay, well, if can you stand up for me please, I need to test you balance," Johanna followed the direction, wincing when pain shot through her abdomen. Gale reached out to steady her but she shrunk away, he shot her a concerned look but she ignored it, weren't doctors supposed to have better poker faces? "Alright, can you just stand on one leg for me?"

Johanna lifted her leg, but almost as soon as it left the ground she felt her balance topple, she attempted the maneuver a couple more times before the doctor told her to stop. "Alright, are you having any issues hearing?" He asked her after scribbling something on his clipboard.

"What? Sorry, did you say something?" She asked, her sarcasm evident in her tone. When he gave her a stern look she cleared her throat. "Right after I fell I couldn't hear shit past the ringing but after a while it came back, but it's still kinda lingering there if I don't block it out."

"Vision?"

"Initially pretty blurry, like a picture out of focus, but now it's back to normal."

The sound of pen scratching paper filled the curtained room.

He looked to Katniss, "Do you know how long she was unconscious  for?" he asked.

"I don't know, no more than twenty seconds," she told him.

"Alright, have you taken any medication today?"

"Yeah, after I fell Katniss gave me some Ibuprofen."

More writing.

"Alright, can you rate the pain in your abdomen for me currently on a scale of zero to ten?"

Johanna squinted and considered it, "Um, about a six standing still, if I move in any way it jumps up to an eight or nine," she said, anticipating his next question.

"Alright, I'm gonna take you back for an x-ray now," he said, nodding to Katniss. "If you want to you can sit in the waiting room, this shouldn't take too long," Johanna watched as Katniss nodded in response and padded out of the room, not needing any further direction. "Follow me," he told Johanna.

Johanna followed him through another quiet corridor and into a room with a large machine in the center. She'd only had an x-ray once before, she'd thought she had broken her wrist falling after getting pushed down when she'd gotten caught in a mosh pit at a concert but it had only been a sprain.

"Just lay down on the bench for me, please," he requested, when she obliged he gestured to a built-in room with windows in it, "I'll be just in there, so if you need anything just call out, this shouldn't take very long."

Johanna normally would have verbally brushed off his comment about needing anything, but she figured he was just doing his job, it was probably mandatory or something.

The x-ray was over as soon as it had started and they walked back down the corridor into the waiting room where she had sat when they'd come in.

"Alright, as far as your concussion goes it doesn't seem to serious but I'm going to need you to avoid any contact sports or, uh, tree climbing for about a month, but if everything seems to be okay I might be able to clear you sooner." He said, nodding at Johanna to make sure she understood, which she verified with a nod of her own. "Now, your ribs aren't broken, but they're definitely bruised, so again, I'm going to need you to avoid contact sports and anything that can risk damaging them farther. I'm going to prescribe you some pain killers and you should be good. All right?"

Johanna nodded in response and Katniss did the same, he scribbled down a couple more notes on his clipboard and handed her two slips of paper, the prescription and a note in case she needed to explain anything to her professors.

 She mumbled her thanks and Katniss did the same and they were back in the girl's car in no time.

"Are you sure he's a dick because he seemed pretty nice, professional , even," she said, warranting a laugh from Katniss, who was putting the keys in the ignition.

"Gale and this other guy are practically fighting tooth and nail for me, there in this pissing contest over who's going to get in my pants first, it's ridiculous," Katniss said, putting the car into gear and backing out of the parking spot she had pulled into.

"Quite the love triangle you have on your hands," Johanna said, slightly enticed by the drama.

"I'm pretty sure it has to flow both ways in order to be a love triangle," Katniss deadpanned.

"Ooh, are you telling me you're not involved in some hush, hush secret hospital romance?"

"I don't sleep with people I work with, and especially not people who haven't bothered learning the first thing about me," she said, Johanna could detect underlying venom in her tone that sparked some sort of tension in the car.

"I don't know the first thing about you and you asked me out," Johanna replied, gauging Katniss' reaction.

The taller girl rolled her eyes. "First of all, I didn't ask you on a date, and second of all, you know more about me than those two idiots, plus you kind of threw yourself out of a tree for me."

"You're so right, I saw you coming and I thought, 'wow, she's so hot, I wonder if I could get her number if I concussed myself.'"

Katniss laughed, "So you admit it, you do think I'm hot," she said, "Where are we going, by the way?"

"You must be hot if you have half the hospital fighting over you," she said, Katniss shook her head. "Uh, if you want you can drop me at my place," she said, not oblivious to the way Katniss' features seemed to sink slightly. "Or I can cook for you, I don't know if that's quite a date but I can see what I can do," she said and watched as Katniss tried to conceal a small smile.

"Alright,  if you insist," said Katniss.

Johanna smirked to herself and typed her address into the GPS on her phone, grumbling to herself about the cracked screen, apparently Johanna lived closer than she thought she did to the hospital because about three songs and some radio commercials later Katniss was pulling into the parking lot of Johanna's apartment complex.

She unclipped her keychain from her backpack and unlocked the front door, gesturing for Katniss to go in ahead of her. She quickly followed and kicked the door shut behind her, throwing her keys in a bowl in the foyer before hiking the stairs after Katniss. "Somehow I managed to score a ground floor apartment and no one has moved in above me yet, it's one of my proudest achievements," she said, but Katniss was already up the stairs and enthralled by the decor of her living room.

"Did you take all these?" She asked, referring to the various black and white prints that lined her walls. A particular close up shot of pine needles and a tall tree had captured her attention.

Johanna nodded before it occurred to her that the girl didn't have her eyes on her. "Yeah, I'm kind of vain in the sense that I hung my whole portfolio on my walls, but I don't give a damn," she said, shuffling into her bedroom to discard her bag.

"They're beautiful," Katniss said, browsing the other shots.

"If you're trying to make me blush, brainless, there are easier ways," Johanna replied, surveying her refrigerator which was empty, save for a half gallon of milk (expired), and a half dozen carton of eggs (also expired). "So about the cooking thing... how do you feel about pizza?" She asked.

Katniss pulled herself out of browsing Johanna's prints. "Yeah, that's good, just pepperoni for me, please," she said, shooting Johanna a smile, which she gladly reciprocated.

"Oh good, we're pizza compatible," she said as she plopped down on the faux-leather that was tucked against the wall and grabbed her laptop off of the coffee table in front of it. She navigated to her choice pizza website and typed in the information. "Should be here in twenty minutes, but sometime the idiots have trouble figuring out what door to come to and it turns into a big fucking mess."

Katniss laughed, "You know there's a box set aside for 'special directions'  so that sort of thing doesn't happen, right?" she asked, sitting down beside Johanna.

"Yeah, but it's funny to hear how exasperated they sound when they try to explain why they're so late," Johanna said, punching the power button on the TV remote and tossing it to Katniss to pick a channel.

"You're kind of an asshole, you know," the other girl said, scrolling through the guide until she landed on a show Johanna had never heard of (but that didn't say too much because Johanna didn't watch a lot of television).

"Oh I am? I hadn't noticed," Johanna said, making herself comfortable with her head against Katniss' shoulder, and smirking in satisfaction when the other girl adjusted to accommodate her.

"You're nice to me though," Katniss observed, Johanna grunted in response, trying to get comfortable on the couch (and doing her best to ignore the pain that shot through her ribs each time she moved), and rearranging Katniss' position to oblige her in the process. Johanna was pretty confident neither of them were watching the show that was playing and both of them were considering each other, she wondered if having it on was just a waste of power. "Is there a reason?"

Johanna groaned. "Brainless, please, I'm trying to watch the show."

"Oh yeah, it would help if your eyes were on the TV, you don't even know what we're watching," Katniss all but interjected, accentuating her words by nudging Johanna with her shoulder lightly.

"I didn't say I _was_ watching the show, I said I was _trying_."

"Sorry, am I distracting you?"

"Yeah, kind of. Also you're very uncomfortable."

Katniss groaned and adjusted herself, grabbing  a throw pillow and pushing it against the arm of the couch before reclining against it and kicking her one foot up on the opposite arm and one knee bent against the back of the couch. Johanna sighed in contentment and wiggled herself up so that her head was resting on the other girl's abdomen and her feet kicked in between hers.

"Why is your couch so small?" Katniss asked in annoyance as Johanna angled herself more toward the TV she wasn't watching.

"Why are you so tall?" She shot back, Katniss wasn't really wrong, it was more of a love seat than an actual sofa but it was more fun to mess with the girl. "When's the pizza gonna be here?"

The sound of a slightly distant knock interrupted whatever Katniss was going to say. "Are you going to get it or are you going to make the injured party get it?" Johanna asked.

"You're on top."

"Really? I kinda had you pegged as a top, I guess I was wrong,"  Johanna said and rolled off the couch, ignoring a groan from Katniss, and half tip-toed, half limped down the stairs, trying to find the best pace that didn't light up her body in agony.

She threw the door open and thrust a probably inappropriate amount of cash at the pizza man, who was rambling on about how he didn't know which door to go to or which apartment it was exactly, but Johanna wasn't listening and as soon as the transaction was made she promptly slammed the door in his face.

She hiked the stairs and figured she probably should have called her pain prescription in, but focused on the incentive of pizza.

Once she was upstairs she grabbed two soda cans out of a cupboard, (She only drank soft drinks on special occasions, and she always forgot to put them in the fridge.) and tossed one to Katniss, earning her a glare when it landed in the girl's lap because "Now I can't open it or it will explode," and plopped down in her previous position, the pizza box resting on top of her.

Johanna knocked the lid open and pulled a piece out, thankful that the slices were cut all the way through and Katniss soon followed suit, moaning quietly into her slice. (Johanna withheld an inappropriate joke.)

"Johanna."

"Yeah?" She said through a mouthful of pizza, she watched as Katniss discarded her crust and grabbed her drink taking a swig before passing it to Johanna, who did the same before flicking the pizza box closed and discarding it on the coffee table.

"Have you ever met someone and just immediately clicked with them?"

"Besides you, no."

"So you felt it, too?"

"Yeah, brainless, I felt it too," Johanna said, angling her head up to make eye contact with the taller girl.

"I just feel like I know you somehow, like it's been longer than a day," Johanna watched as Katniss spoke, the honesty in her voice sparked a weird tension in the room. "Like, I've been working in the hospital for a couple of months and I don't feel connected to anyone there but with you, I don't know, I feel like it's different and I don't even know your middle name."

Johanna flipped herself over, practically straddling the other girl's legs and leaned down, shrinking the distance between the her and the other girl.

"Do you believe in love at first sight, Katniss?"

Johanna watched as the girl opened her mouth and then closed it, like she was trying to say something but she couldn't get the words out.

Johanna had a feeling it was the close proximity.

"Yes," she choked out, Johanna was in awe of the effect she had on the girl. Maybe it wasn't her, but her actions.

They sat like that, the tension burning in the air for a bit until Johanna couldn't take it any longer.

"Can I kiss you?"

Katniss didn't answer her, but instead found the back of her neck and pulled her forward, the force of it barely giving Johanna enough time to catch herself on the arm of the couch. She felt pain in her ribs and then bliss when the other girl's lips found her own.

The first kiss was almost chaste, but the it took Johanna's breath away none the less. Johanna pulled away slightly, resting her forehead against Katniss', her eyes finding the other girl's, she smiled lightly, and she was pretty confident it was the first genuine smile she'd worn all day, but the other girl kissed it right off of her face.

The second kiss was synchronization and understanding and some sort of drift compatibility that Johanna didn't understand or even want to. The girl's hands moved to Johanna's jaw, her thumb drawing patterns over the skin, moving with their lips, and then threaded into her hair and didn't move even when they came up for air.

"I don't have one," Johanna said when they were pulled apart slightly.

Katniss looked dazed. "What?" She asked, her hands stroking through Johanna's hair.

"A middle name, I don't have one," She clarified, Katniss shook her head and smiled, her head collapsing back against the armrest. "So are you admitting you're in love with me yet, brainless?"

"Don't flatter yourself, I'm not in love with you, we just met," she scoffed. "But I really like you, not that you need that ego boost," she added and the way her cheeks turned pink, even despite the previous scene, made Johanna smile.

"Really, because the way you kissed me said otherwise," Johanna said with a self-satisfied smirk. "Isn't there a rule about that, too, kissing on the first date?"

Katniss rolled her eyes. "You're not exactly an innocent party in this, I don't think you have any room to talk."

Johanna traced the ridge of Katniss' cheekbone with her thumb, leaning in and pressing a chaste kiss to the girl's lips, she pulled away and Katniss tried to follow. "If you don't want me to talk, there are ways of getting me to shut up," she said, and that was all the incentive Katniss seemed to need because a second later the girl's lips had captured her own.

**Author's Note:**

> hey everyone, thank you so much for reading this, it means so much to me. this is probably slightly out of character for jo but i wanted to play around a little bit with how her character would have been if she hadn't gone through all of the stuff she went through in the books. also, i just wanted to throw in a little disclaimer that i don't know the first thing about medicine or concussions or rib injuries, but i did do a little bit of research so hopefully i didn't make any critical errors in there. please let me know what you think here or on tumblr over at pinebundles. thank you so much for reading, i really hope you enjoyed! (this hasn't been proof-read by anyone besides my self, so if you see any glaring errors, please feel free to shoot me a message so i can edit them.)


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